I picked strawberry in hopes it would win me brownie points with Komari.
I’m curious about something. As someone who has never played the original or Ecstasy, are the Komari up-skirt cgs from the original version of the game or did they come from Ecstasy? If the former, did they decide to censor them by zooming in the image in Japan once Ecstasy was made all-ages by console editions? Or is this bit of censorship exclusive to the English edition? It’s lewd, for sure, but I wouldn’t think they’d censor it in Japan unless it was actual nudity and or porn.
Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the anime already, but I have to admit, I’ve felt the visual novel is a mixed bag so far. The main guys are consistently hilarious, avoiding the stock tropes bromantic foils in anime often fall into (they’re not perverted, they’re not excessively lame compared to the main character, etc.). As an earlier user here pointed out, Masato’s just an awesome bro. Even his off-beat muscle-obsession is portrayed in a way that doesn’t make me feel it’s too off the wall for a real human being. His chemistry with Riki feels laid-back in such a way that makes it easy for me to believe they’re friends. As far as the group dynamic goes, Kengo feels a little redundant so far, considering his straight-man role is most consistently filled by Riki (his only notable difference is his rivalry with Masato), but his normalcy is often a nice break from the weirdness.
One of my main beefs so far has been the redundancy of the story structure. As others have pointed out, the common route kind of hits the same beats every day, and I can’t honestly say the day-to-day variations are all that entertaining. The end of day “Rin infiltrates girls’ dormitory to hopefully improve her social skills, only to get pounded”, isn’t particularly amusing, and seems more mean-spirited than anything else. I mean, she really doesn’t deserve it, and a lot of her failings are the LB gang putting her up to weird stuff. It’s framed as them trying to help her, too, which just puts a bad taste in my mouth. Additionally, There are only so many seinfeldian conversations Riki can have with X or Y heroine that he plays along with, carrying an air of superiority along with him, before it gets rather stale. Oftentimes, I find it difficult to even follow the humor in a particular scene (maybe it’s just a stiff translation. I don’t remember having such issues in Clannad). I feel like the heroines oftentimes (Komari is particularly prone to this, but I even see it from Mio and Kurugaya as well), engage in these confusing, almost otherworldly conversations about something completely arbitrary. I feel like there is potential humor in such a situation if the conversation starts off normal, but derails into inanity (I feel like most of the Tomoya and Sunohara conversations were built on this), but because the vast majority of the characters are so bizarre and quirk, we just progress from weird to weirder. Whenever girls like Komari and Rin go to Kurugaya for advice and she gives them obviously BS advice about the best way to seem more confident or engaging, and they take her advice unironically, it doesn’t just make them seem awkward, it makes it seem like they have the IQ of raw sewage. Just because Rin is sheltered by the admittedly rather quirky Busters doesn’t mean she’s had no exposure at how normal people behave, she’s been to school (plus, Riki, is by all accounts, a pretty average guy in day-to-day interactions). When she does this sort of thing, she feels less like a believably shy and awkward character, and more like a shy and awkward child in a teenager’s body (As someone who’s talked to shy and awkward teenagers ((and been one myself)), this sort of bizarre characterization is frustrating to see). Her hiding behind another Buster when asked to introduce herself to Komari also frustrated me, as this is behavior only someone who is literally a child would do. She just hasn’t been believably sheltered enough to act like this (this is behavior about as strange as some of Kotomi’s behavior in Clannad, and ((Early Kotomi route spoilers)) and she’s had no meanginful interactions with anyone for several years, while Rin has had a strong circle of friends . I have similar issues with Komari. Her overwhelming exuberance and lack of ability to detect social cues for certain situations speaks far more like a child than a teenager who goes to an actual high school. Her confusing, well-articulated in a way a child would approach the manner way of speaking just isn’t believable in the context of her being a teenager. ((Komari route spoilers)) even knowing what happens in her route doesn’t really justify this in my mind . On the flip side, Kurugaya’s teasing isn’t so much the problem (although I dislike the idea of casual sexual threats and implied attempts at sexual harassment funny, because it wouldn’t be funny if she was a man), but the way she approaches it. If she regarded her victims with any manner of intelligence, she would be more savvy about it, but the fact that she instantly regards them as naïve children (or waifus) right from the get-go illustrates the issue with the character-crafting from the start. Heck, even Mio is subject to this, even though someone who is book-read should at least realize how strange some of the behavior is (though, I could give her the benefit of the doubt and say she’s just trolling). I get these optional talks with the girls are supposed to build chemistry, but they kind of feel like a try-hard kind of “Isn’t this such a weird thing to say or do? Isn’t that hilarious that the girls are so stupid, they don’t get what they’re saying is kind of dumb?”. I also see a kind of inherent assumption here that all of these girls would get along pretty much on the fact they’re girls, an assessment I don’t really agree with (Rin, in particular, isn’t quite as prudish as I’d expect her to be at points. Even if she hides it out of fear in front of strangers, she’d at least vent to the other Busters).
For me, Riki isn’t a particularly interesting character until far later on. Here, he just acts like any blandly straight-man, self-insert MC would in these situations. It’s hard to pin down a personality for him beyond “generic nice guy”, with his only reason for standing out being how bland he is compared to aggressively quirky cast around him. He’s only awkward in ways that hint at more interesting moments to come, but otherwise, is perfectly capable of speaking on similar wavelengths to the bizarre personalities around him. I just can’t believe the chemistry. Someone savvy like Kyousuke I could see knowing how to talk to bond with odd-balls like Komari and Mio, but an average joe would likely awkwardly lurk away after a couple of exchanged sentences with these people. Granted, Riki’s been around oddballs all his life, but he kind of owes them, and has had years to get used to them. These people are strangers, and I just find it hard to stomach that he’s so effortlessly able to endear himself to them just on the virtue of being a normal guy, it frustrates me. Key’s earlier protagonists have had a bit more variety to their conversations, and display a bit more social grace and are quirky in a charismatic way (Yuichi and Tomoya are the obvious examples), but it’s kind of disappointing to see Key (at least at this point in the story), default to particularly annoying stock tropes like this one.
The mini-games are a nice change of pace (though, admittedly, I suck at them, so I was blown out at the baseball game). I appreciate the fact that they allow you to turn them off, though, since if you’re really not into them, they do kind of break up the pacing quite a bit. I cannot at all complain about the presentation, though, with the character designs being more reasonably moe than earlier games, rather than the exaggerated eye shapes of earlier titles, the background art, the bells and whistles of how you can rewind at fast speeds, there’s nothing to complain about on a presentation front. I’m just finding the writing rather lackluster so far, unfortunately.
“it turned out quite well don’t you think” 
(IRL I don’t eat doughnuts, too much sugar), not that I remember what happened after. Now I have started anew on the Rin route, and yes some new scenes already obviously with Rin’s tasks ( and very helpful to set the options to show choices I previously made ). Now the “Secret of the World” does provide quite a good hook that I missed out on with my choice first playthrough, though I suspect it may not be earth-shattering.
